Page 1: Intro, Parts

Intro:

You are probably like most people when they go on vacation and use a digital camera with a few memory cards. It would be great if you didn't need a computer all the time to constantly backup your photos. The MS1U from Sans Digital is billed as a digital photo bank and it does just that. It takes a laptop (IDE) hard drive and converts it into portable storage for your memory cards.

Parts:

I know you are terribly upset at the thought of not having a section for the box, but I received the unit inside another review product. Interestingly enough, I didn't include a picture of the AC adapter in this shot. You can check out the »MS2UT+B review for it. I included it in that shot by accident. The other parts are the unit itself, a mini screwdriver and screws, a case, a USB2 cable, and the quick start guide.

There is no SDHC support on the MS1U. Hopefully Sans Digital will release an update that will provide this functionality since most devices support SDHC cards.

MS1U:

The MS1U carries the silver motif and shines with it. It is slightly bigger than the laptop hard drive itself (as you will see in the video supplement later). The unit has a good sized LCD screen to give you information about the hard drive as well as transfer status and card capacity used.

The unit takes an IDE laptop hard drive instead of a serial ATA drive. It just so happens that I had an extra one to use with this. Interestingly, the unit is called the "Digi Drive" and the "Digital Photo Bank." If I had to pick one of them only, it would be the latter. What is a "Digi Drive" anyway?

The bottom of the unit has ports for USB, the AC adapter, and a charging status LED. The unit can be charged from the AC or USB and should take a bit longer to charge through USB. By charge, I mean that the unit has an internal battery to give you juice on the go when you are away from your computer or a wall socket.

The left side of the unit contains the slot for SD and other sized cards as well as the functional buttons of the unit. There are only two buttons; On/off and copy are your choices. The unit is very simple to operate once you have the drive installed in it. Everything else is handled automatically.

CompactFlash makes a splash with this unit as does the MicroDrive which no one really uses anymore. Speaking about no one uses...

SM for SmartMedia. Now that's a format that nobody uses anymore. I thought that was phased out when CompactFlash took over? Either way, you get the majority of ports you need for current picture cards. There is no xD or SDHC support, but xD is garbage and SDHC will hopefully be included soon.